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Star Wars: Rebellion
Overview Star Wars: Rebellion is a board game of epic conflict between the Galactic Empire and Rebel Alliance for two to four players! Experience the Galactic Civil War like never before. In Rebellion, you control the entire Galactic Empire or the fledgling Rebel Alliance. You must command starships, account for troop movements, and rally systems to your cause. Given the differences between the Empire and Rebel Alliance, each side has different win conditions, and you'll need to adjust your play style depending on who you represent: * As the Imperial player, you can command legions of Stormtroopers, swarms of TIEs, Star Destroyers, and even the Death Star. You rule the galaxy by fear, relying on the power of your massive military to enforce your will. To win the game, you need to snuff out the budding Rebel Alliance by finding its base and obliterating it. Along the way, you can subjugate worlds or even destroy them. * As the Rebel player, you can command dozens of troopers, T-47 airspeeders, Corellian corvettes, and fighter squadrons. However, these forces are no match for the Imperial military. In terms of raw strength, you'll find yourself clearly overmatched from the very outset, so you'll need to rally the planets to join your cause and execute targeted military strikes to sabotage Imperial build yards and steal valuable intelligence. To win the Galactic Civil War, you'll need to sway the galaxy's citizens to your cause. If you survive long enough and strengthen your reputation, you inspire the galaxy to a full-scale revolt, and you win. Featuring more than 150 plastic miniatures and two game boards that account for thirty-two of the Star Wars galaxy's most notable systems, Rebellion features a scope that is as large and sweeping as any Star Wars game before it. Yet for all its grandiosity, Rebellion remains intensely personal, cinematic, and heroic. As much as your success depends upon the strength of your starships, vehicles, and troops, it depends upon the individual efforts of such notable characters as Leia Organa, Mon Mothma, Grand Moff Tarkin, and Emperor Palpatine. As civil war spreads throughout the galaxy, these leaders are invaluable to your efforts, and the secret missions they attempt will evoke many of the most inspiring moments from the classic trilogy. You might send Luke Skywalker to receive Jedi training on Dagobah or have Darth Vader spring a trap that freezes Han Solo in carbonite! How to Play Basic gameplay is deceptively simple. The game proceeds in rounds, which are tracked on the left side of the board. The Empire wins if it can hunt down and destroy the secret Rebel base; the Rebels win if they can advance a "reputation" marker down the round tracker until the two meet. (Thus, as a game gets longer, it favors the Rebellion, whose marker starts on space 14.) Rebel reputation improves by matching the conditions specified on objective cards—conditions like having at least one Rebel unit alone on the Imperial capital of Coruscant or maintaining Rebel loyalty throughout an entire region of the map. The Rebel and Imperial players each maintain a pool of leaders—iconic characters from the original trilogy—that grows in number as the game advances. On each turn, these leaders can be assigned to missions, or they can stay in the "leader pool" to move starships or counter the other player's missions. Next, during a command phase, the two sides alternate using their leaders. Missions may be revealed and attempted in various systems, ships and troops may be moved, and combat may occur. The map will gradually develop as missions bend system loyalty toward the Imperials or the Rebels, while Imperial ground troops can simply "subjugate" any system upon which they land without worrying too much if the populace embraces their presence. Controlling the map matters for two reasons. First, if Imperial ground troops land on a planet containing the Rebel base, the base is revealed—and all of its units are moved from the "Rebel base" space at the edge of the board to the system where the base actually resides. Second, controlling territory matters because most planets contain production icons for building new ships or ground units. Once all leaders have been deployed and their actions resolved, the game gets refreshed. Leaders are pulled back to each player's leader pool for the next round, new missions are drawn, the Rebels gain a new objective card, and the Imperials draw a couple of probe droid cards that narrow down the hunt for the hidden base. Finally, the round tracker is advanced, new leaders are recruited by each side, and new units are built. (These last two actions don't happen every round; icons on the tracker indicate when they do.) New units enter a "build queue" on one side of the board and can take one, two, or even three turns to advance down the queue and into play, where they are finally deployed to systems loyal to your faction. The game proceeds in this way until the Rebel base is destroyed or the Rebels gain enough reputation to win. But if you think that sounds simple, you will find that it is you who are mistaken... about a great many things. Links and References Official Website BoardGameGeek Review